The early bird deadline for 
It's time for the NICAR 2026 T-shirt contest!
Michelle Breidenbach and Tim Knauss, of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.), examined the previously undisclosed accounting of the National Grid fund, a little-known fund run by the power company. It spent $25 million of its customers’ money on economic development projects — including image-making and branding, parties and promotion, and such gimmicks as a local public-TV…
Read MoreAn investigative series by The Columbus Dispatch analyzed the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis in central Ohio, as well as the future impact to the region. “A wave of foreclosures during recent years has pushed property values downward for the first time in decades,” the Dispatch analysis found.
Read MoreCary Spivak and Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed how a motley collection of individuals and firms made money off one suspicious real estate deal in which a learning disabled man ended up buying a run-down inner city home. The newspaper hired a handwriting expert who determined that signatures may have been forged…
Read MoreA Dallas Morning News investigation has found dozens of sites with hazardous chemicals that are in close proximity to residential neighborhoods. It is a problem throughout Dallas County. In some cases, plants and warehouses are within blocks — and even across the street — from homes, apartment complexes, and schools. Of the over 900 sites…
Read MoreA series by The Boston Globe explores the efforts of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), a program launched by the Pentagon in 2003 to aid in the recovery of MIAs from foreign wars. During WWII, over 2,000 Americans were lost over Papua New Guinea. The Globe details the work being done there to bring…
Read MoreSalon.com’s Mark Benjamin and freelance journalist Christopher Weaver investigated the 2007 execution of Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, an unarmed Iraqi prisoner. Three U.S. snipers were charged in the murder. "A review of thousands of pages of documents from the legal proceedings obtained by Salon shows that in the months prior to Khudair’s death, the young…
Read MoreBrian Joseph of the Orange County Register investigated the California Statewide Communities Development Authority, a public agency founded to finance “projects of public value.” The agency “issued about $4.2 billion in tax free bonds in 2007, ranking behind only the states of California, Ohio and New York.” Analysis of financial documents showed that much of…
Read MoreThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s Cameron McWhirter and Megan Clarke report that former Congressman Bob Barr’s political action committee has raised $4.3 million since 2003 to promote conservative candidates and causes, primarily at the national level. But the PAC gave only $125,200 — about three cents of every dollar raised — to federal candidates and other campaign…
Read MoreA three-month investigation by journalism students at Humboldt State University looked into the suicide of James Lee Peters, a mentally-ill Native American inmate at Humboldt County Jail. With few people willing to talk, the students relied on public records obtained through the California Public Records Act to piece together what happened to Lee, and how…
Read MoreAn investigation by David Andreatta, of the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), examined the textbook procurement procedure of the Rochester School District and found a wide range of problems and waste. Issues range from nearly 20,000 book going undistributed eight months into the school year to $1.4 million in secondary school books being lost by…
Read More